War! What have we been fighting for?

The remaining withdrawal of British forces is only weeks away and the stocktaking has begun in earnest. What did the troops achieve in Iraq? Was the sacrifice worth it? What kind of country are they leaving behind?

I don't actually want to open that particular (big) can of worms – civilian deaths in the war and aftermath v. political killings, torture and imprisonment under Saddam Hussein; horrendous sectarian violence v. blanket persecution under the Ba'athists. How to even start on this zero-sum game anyway?

My point is slightly different. It's this: have the Blair and Brown governments been paying attention to what's going on "below the surface" of the headline-grabbing insurgency/counter-insurgency in Iraq?

If we take one example – Kurdistan – I'd say the answer is: no, they haven't. The autonomous region in the north is interesting partly because it's actually been far less violent than many other parts of the country, certainly compared to Baghdad.

Okay, good for Kurdistan. But actually, take a closer look – as Amnesty does in a new report today – and there's a whole lot less to be sanguine about. For example, there's a security service called the Asayishthat's been busily imprisoning people for up to nine years without charge or trial. For good measure it's been torturing detainees and "disappearing" others without trace. Basically a law unto themselves, the Asayish isanswerable to no-one but the Kurdistan president for its actions. Note the nine years. It was doing this during Saddam's time and, while its activities have scaled down in the last year or so, it's still doing it and hundreds of people are still being held without charge or trial.

Kurdistan is a place where family and culture are incredibly important and not always in good ways. So, apart from the sinister Asayish, the two other Kurdish security services – also with poor human rights records – are the Parastin, headed by Masrour Barzani, son of the Kurdistan Regional Government's president, and the Dezgay Zanyari, led by Pavel Talabani, son of Iraq's president. Security, power and parentage, all in one handy package.

The family/culture/power convergence also impacts on women's rights pretty disastrously. Kurdistan might be relatively "stable" but it's also a place where a third of women have never been to school, where "honour killings" of women who transgress rigid cultural norms are commonplace, and a place where 13-year-old girls burn themselves to death rather than submit to a forced marriage to an older man.

To cap it all, article 398 of the Iraqi Penal Code allows a rapist to escape punishment if he marries his victim.

It came up recently with the row over a controversial new law in Afghanistan and it arises here again: have British troops been expending blood, sweat and tears for governments that don't exactly go out of their way to defend the rights of women, political opponents, journalists or indeed many other at-risk groups?

It's an awkward question to say the least. What exactly have we been fighting for in Iraq?